A website that lists the victims of Righthaven LLC 'shakedown' lawsuits that are causing irreparable harm to bloggers and advocacy websites.

Righthaven LLC -- a bottom feeding legal outfit -- has teamed up with the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Denver Post to sue mom and pop websites, advocacy and public interest groups and forum board operators for copyright infringement. The strategy of Righthaven is to sue thousands of these website owners, who are primarily unfunded and will be forced to settle out of court.

To date Righthaven has been ordered to pay $323,138 in legal fees and sanctions.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Righthaven has given their response to awarding legal Fees to Brian Hill's Attorney David Kerr. Their main argument is that they should not be subject to attorney's fees because they dismissed the case against Brian Hill with prejudice which means the case cannot be refiled. They are trying to make the case that if a case is going badly for a plaintiff they can simply dismiss it with prejudice and it absolves them from any consequences even if their actions caused the defendant and/or the defendants lawyer to incur large legal costs . Novel legal theory but I'm sure David Kerr will have no trouble poking holes in it.

In their response, Righthaven reveals their "Confidential" settlement demands and claim that Brian Hill was acting in "bad faith" for not simply capitulating to Righthaven's demands. In the settlement demands that Righthaven has revealed shows they were willing to settle for as low as $1 even though they had demanded as much as $6000, but even that $1 would have been illegal per federal law for them to collect since Brian Hill's only form of income is Social Security Disability.

The worst part of the settlement demand was to force Brian Hill to publicly disavow everything he had ever said or written about Righthaven and to remove any posts he had written about them and never to write anything "untruthfull" about Righthaven which would mean anything Righthaven objects to. This assault on Brian Hill's First Amendment right to free speech was unacceptable.

Righthaven also claims in their response that they did not object to Brian Hill's motion to get a 21 day extension after he had obtained legal council from David Kerr.

4.Righthaven did not oppose Defendant’s first request for an extension of time to respond to the Complaint.

Despite all that, Kerr complained Righthaven wouldn't agree to give Kerr more time to file a more thorough legal response.
Senior U.S. District Judge John L. Kane sided with Kerr on Tuesday, giving him until March 21 to file an amended answer to the lawsuit.

"The worst part of the settlement demand was to force Brian Hill to disavow everything he had ever said or written about Righthaven and to remove any posts he had written about them and never to write anything "untruthfull" about Righthaven which would mean anything Righthaven objects to."

Gotta wonder how many defendants agreed to give up their First Amendment rights when making a "settlement agreement" with Righthaven.

It is interesting how Righthaven feels they could just unilaterally reveal the confidential settlement demand without getting permission from David Kerr. I would imagine Righthaven would have nailed David Kerr to a wall if he exposed the terms. It will be interesting to see how David Kerr responds to this and Righthaven's claim they did not oppose the 21 day extension.